Why Are We Treating the Muslim Brotherhood Like The Victim in Egypt?

As the Middle East continues to fall apart, President Obama's stance on foreign policy becomes more confusing. Despite dubbing Egypt as the gateway to the Muslim world in 2009, the country is on the brink of civil war and the administration seems to be backing the Muslim Brotherhood while lecturing the military about "killing civilians." During the time Mohamed Morsi was in power, the United States sent F-16 fighter jets to the country and billions of dollars in aid. Shortly before the military overthrew Morsi, that aid was halted.

But is it really innocent civilians and "peaceful protestors" who have been killed by the Egyptian military in the streets? Hardly, the Muslim Brotherhood is only making it look that way. The Brotherhood has been using the media to portray itself in a positive light while wreaking havoc on Coptic Christians, government installations and police. A young woman in Egypt, who asked to remain anonymous due to fears of the Brotherhood retaliating against her, contacted me this week to explain. I asked her if the violence in the streets was a result of the Muslim Brotherhood attacking people, rather than the military, she said yes.

"They [members of the Muslim Brotherhood] are firing first," she said.

The young woman also explained how the sit-in of "protesters" was used by the Muslim Brotherhood to hide and portray themselves as victims. She said members of the Brotherhood would leave the sit-in, kill people in the streets and return to the sit-in all while telling human rights groups and journalists they were they ones being attacked.

"The marches graduated from inside the sit-in with weapons and attacking people in the streets. Then, they would return from these marches to hide in the sit-in. This was happening in front of the cameras. They were inviting local and foreign newspapers and human rights organizations to be a witness to the unfold of the sit-in," she said.

Dr. Walid Phares, an expert on the Middle East and terrorism, also said the Brotherhood is portraying themselves as innocent and peaceful protestors when the opposite is true. The [Bolding is mine]

"The Muslim Brotherhood strategy has always been to maneuver their foes and public opinion. In the Arab world they are known historically for their "khid'a doctrine" or deceit. Over the past decades since their inception in 1928, the Brotherhood practiced the policy of "the limited agenda" in public and the "long term agenda" among their membership. Today, after 33 million Egyptians marched twice against their rule on June 30 and again on July 26, and as the Egyptian Army is moving to disarming their militias and dismantling their armed embankments in Cairo and other cities, the Ikhwan (MB) are waging a worldwide propaganda campaign claiming that they are the victims of a military coup and that Egyptian military is persecuting them, killing unarmed civilians, including women and children on purpose," Phares told Townhall. "We've seen these tactics with Hamas and Hezbollah before: using civilians as shields and using the casualties as evidence of victimization. However the Egyptian interim Government, determined to fight terror and dismantle the violent networks, is now releasing videos and information about the deception tactics of the Brotherhood. More important, Egypt's civil society is producing significant investigative material to indict the organization and push back against its propaganda worldwide. But the most disappointing behavior, according to Egyptian civil society leaders has been the unprecedented partisan attitude of most mainstream media in the West particularly in the US. Egyptians, the liberals among them, are in disbelief about the cover up provided by respected media in America and some of its prominent politicians to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood."

Fox News contributor and award winning Middle East journalist Lisa Daftari explained earlier this week that the Egyptian military is trying to protect the people from terrorists.

More than Christian 60 churches have been burned in Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood was taken out of power and hundreds of people have been killed. President Obama dedicated a single, short statement to the Christians being killed.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not the victim here, it is a terrorist group and the Obama administration should start treating it as one.